The snag pulled itself from the tangle of tree branches and leapt for her. If she dodged, it would be headed straight at Poppy. She hovered and let it come. It reached out its clawed hands. It was on her, its breath on her face, hot and reeking, spraying blood with each earsplitting screech. As it reached out with its claws, Magpie’s own hands darted toward it, faster, one on each of its wrists. Then her wings swept in a powerful backbeat and she dropped, tugging the devil’s arms down so that in its momentum its bony legs spun wildly over its head. She let go and it somersaulted into a pillar with a thud.

Below, the darkness was moving.

Barely fazed by his collision, the snag sprang again.

Skuldraig, Magpie thought, drawing it from its scabbard. “Many devils has it subdued,” the Magruwen had said. He had also said, “It is cursed to slay any who wield it.” Her hand quavered a little and she glanced at the knife, but its weight felt right. The shine of it in the gloom gave her a bloom of strength, and she felt the pulse gather round her and urge her forward.

This time when the snag came at her she spun aside, grabbed its wing, and jumped on its back as if she were mounting a bird mid-flight. Then she whipped Skuldraig around and pressed the flat of the blade against its foul throat. The crystal keening of the knife’s song rang out through the ruins at once and the devil went limp and began to plummet from the sky. Magpie braced her feet against it, and as she jumped free, she kicked out as hard as she could, sending it spiraling toward the clot of shadow below. Wings twitching, it slid into the Blackbringer like a hand into a pocket, and disappeared.

Silence fell over Issrin. The darkness had swallowed the snag whole, and its caterwauling with it. Magpie looked frantically around for some sign of it but all she heard was her own breath and the wing beats of the vultures. Then the squawking of crows filled the air and the birds, alerted by the snag’s shrieks, came winging out of the trees, fast and loud. The vultures were there rising to meet them and there was a hideous screech of birds in the night.

What had the Blackbringer done to that devil?

“Magpie!” cried Poppy, and Magpie turned to her, torn, wanting to go help her crows but needing to get Poppy to safety.

She flew to her friend and grabbed her hand. “Poppy, get away from here, now!” she was saying when suddenly Poppy’s eyes widened in shock. Then her hands were wrenched from Magpie’s grasp and she was snatched away so fast Magpie went into a spin. In her surprise she dropped Skuldraig and heard it clatter to the ground far below.